The Cloud Report

Oracle Software Now Available on Microsoft's Cloud

Microsoft on Thursday said Windows Server-based virtual machine images of Oracle software are now available on Microsoft's cloud offerings, following nine months of development.

The agreement between Microsoft and Oracle to run the Oracle database, WebLogic middleware and Java on Windows Azure was announced last summer, despite a bitter, years-long rivalry between the two companies. However, tensions have eased in recent years as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison had bigger fish to fry -- like IBM, SAP and Salesforce.com.

According to Thursday's announcement, licenses are included with the VM images and can be accessed in the Windows Azure Management Console. When logging in, administrators can click New, then select Compute, followed by Virtual Machine and then From Gallery, which lets them choose images. Among those now available:

Although Windows Azure already supported Java, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who was president of Microsoft's server and tools business last year at the time of the announcement, had pointed out its Java support was based on the OpenJDK. For those who wanted to use Oracle's Java license, the partnership offers a fully licensed and supported Java on Windows Azure.

"We think this makes Java much more first-class with Oracle support on Windows Azure." Nadella said at the time.

While Microsoft had made the Oracle software available on Oracle back in September, Thursday's announcement makes it available on the Windows Server stack, as well.